PINCKNEYVILLE - After suffering their first loss of the season to the Benton Rangers in the semi-finals of the Gold Pool games of the Duster Thomas Hoops Classic, the host Panthers (12-1) came out for blood Saturday night in the third-place game.
The Du Quoin Indians (7-7) also suffered a tough loss in the afternoon to the Wesclin Warriors to pit them against the Panthers.
In their Dec. 15 meeting, the Indians gave the Panthers a run for their money, but fell at home (73-60).
Pinckneyville looked to avenge its afternoon loss to Benton and hit the court with more fire to take a 72-45 win over the Indians.
This gave the Panthers a third-place finish and the Indians a fourth-place finish in the tournament.
"It says a lot about the character of our kids," said Panthers' coach Bob Waggoner. "When you have a failure, you can hang your head or you can respond, learn from it and get better.
"Even though we didn't want to lose, our kids adjusted and really gave an all-around good game tonight."
Indians' coach Justin Barrington said that even though the Tribe wanted to make it all the way to the championship game, he saw more positives than negatives out of the weekend.
"So many games in such a short amount of time lets you see what you need to do to be ready for conference play," he said. "Obviously, you want to win the tournament, but I am happy with where we finished.
"We came in and wanted to win our pool to put ourselves in position to play for the title. Things happened; we just need to learn from our mistakes and move forward."
The contest started evenly matched with the Panthers taking an early five-point lead and the Indians answering back with five of their own points.
A lone free throw from Lamontay Daughtery put the Indians ahead for a few moments until the Panthers responded with a field goal from Grant Jausel (25 points) to reclaim the lead.
"Grant was extremely aggressive but at the same time the presence of Spihlmann really opened things up for Grant to be able to get in there (and get the points)," Waggoner said of his offense.
The Panthers would not give up the lead again, though the Indians gave it their best shot. At the first-quarter buzzer, senior Will Woodside tossed up a trey to keep his team close (17-11).
The host team used the second quarter to pull farther away from Du Quoin.
They scored 21 points to the Tribe's 12 to take a 38-21 lead going into the half.
Back in the action, the Panthers would not give an inch and continued to pound the paint until the final buzzer sounded.
Pinckneyville all but shut out Du Quoin's Daughtery who only made one shot attempt thoughout the game.
"We didn't handle their pressure well. They're really physical on the inside," Barrington said of Pinckneyville. "We just need to get in deeper. We need to get Tay (Daughtery) deeper into the lane. We can't let them push him out. He was on the ground more than on his feet this game and it's hard to attempt a shot that way."
Leading the Panthers to their third-place finish was senior Jausel who tallied 25 points on the night.
He was followed by J.C. Moll (17 points), Tanner Spihlmann (11 points), Dawson Yates (seven points), Kelton Linze (five points), Kyle Luke, Kyle Kreger, and Grant Tanner (two points each), and Tyler Rice (one point).
The Tribe was led by sophomore Braeden Pursell (12 points).
He was followed by Hank Stewart (10 points), Will Woodside (nine points), Ashton Smith (six points), Lamontay Daughtery and Josh Heape (three points each), and Carson Davis (two points).
